


R.I.P.

by EchoThruTheWoods, WandererRiha



Series: My Friend, Goodbye [2]
Category: Compilation of Final Fantasy VII, Final Fantasy VII
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-31
Updated: 2016-10-31
Packaged: 2018-08-28 03:12:37
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,612
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8429269
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/EchoThruTheWoods/pseuds/EchoThruTheWoods, https://archiveofourown.org/users/WandererRiha/pseuds/WandererRiha
Summary: Tseng entered the house first, using the key Veld had given him in case of emergency.
It wasn’t an emergency, some distant part of him knew, but he would face that when he had to and not a moment before.





	

**Author's Note:**

> I seriously wrote this because I needed the closure after reading Riha's "Goodbye."

Tseng entered the house first, using the key Veld had given him in case of emergency.

It wasn’t an emergency, some distant part of him knew, but he would face that when he had to and not a moment before. He knocked first. It was a formality.

No one answered the door. A tiny drop of hope he hadn’t even known he possessed dried up and blew away.

Profound silence greeted him. No - more than silence. _Emptiness_.

He found them in the back bedroom, Vincent clasped loosely in Veld’s arms. Veld had been careful; he’d known just where to position the gun to accomplish his last task while creating as little mess as possible. Despite the damage, Veld’s face was serene.

Tseng let out a slow breath. His throat spasmed, briefly, but he got it under control. Steps in the hall behind him heralded Reno, who stopped at Tseng’s back.

_“Damn.”_ Reno slid a sideways glance at Tseng. “You okay, boss?”

“Fine.” It was true, as far as it went. He still had work to do. “Rude’s with the van?”

“Yeah.”

“Bring in the gurneys through the back door. Make it quick and quiet.”

“You got it.” Reno hesitated and, still looking at the bed, said, “You ain’t gonna make it a threesome while I’m gone, right?”

Tseng shook his head. “He wouldn’t want that. No.”

“Okay, then. Be right back.”

He left, and Tseng approached the bed. For a long moment, he just looked at them, at the way his mentor had chosen to go out, and the man he’d followed into the dark.

How...diminished Vincent seemed. Youth and beauty faded to gray, all the long years finally coming to an end.

“You never wanted any of this, did you?” The three words that kept echoing through Tseng’s mind were _old, tired,_ and _sad._

“I envied you, Valentine,” he said. “It was petty and childish of me, and I regret it.”

“And you, my friend and commander…” He put a hand on Veld’s shoulder, near the juncture of flesh and prosthetic. There was little difference between them now, both cold and unyielding, Veld’s bones fragile beneath thinning skin.

“After everything you lived through, the only one of your enemies that you couldn’t defeat was time.”

He took the gun from Veld’s hand with a hushed apology for the liberty, and set it aside. Unfastening the buckles on the front of Vincent’s cloak, he carefully pulled it out from under his body, and spread the red fabric across both men.

Bowing his head, he began to chant a sutra.

\---

Once the bodies had been safely stowed in the van, Tseng did a quick search for anything too valuable or too sensitive to be left in case of a break-in. Veld’s gun, wrapped in plastic, went into Tseng’s own pocket. Rude brought a lockbox from the van, and into this went Veld and Vincent’s WRO ID badges, Veld’s wallet - Vincent didn’t seem to own one - and a folder of personal papers from a small safe in Veld’s bedroom. The last thing into the box was the materia that had fallen from Vincent’s body.

Rude took the lockbox back to the van. Tseng himself carried the custom-made case that held Cerberus and Vincent’s other guns, holsters slung over his shoulder. He locked the doors with a feeling of finality that burned at the back of his eyes all the way to headquarters.

The Turks had always handled their own dead, preparing them for burial or cremation as befit the deceased’s wishes. Tseng saw to it that Vincent and Veld were accorded all the dignity and respect they were due. Then he went home and got quietly, spectacularly drunk.

\---

The wake was a nine-day wonder. The chapel at WRO headquarters had seating for two-hundred-fifty people. Every seat was filled, and people stood in the hall as well. Vincent’s friends occupied the front row. From there to the back of the room were Turks, and the staff, field agents, and troops from the WRO.

Ice-white lilies and chrysanthemums filled the room. Clouds of peppery incense drifted continuously from the altar in front of the two coffins, laid side by side. How ironic, Tseng thought, that Vincent once again occupied such a bed. This time, there would be no rising from it.

Among Veld’s personal effects, Tseng had found a notebook in Veld’s handwriting, its pages filled with recipes. For the vigil, Tifa and Rufus Shinra’s personal cooks had produced every dish in the book. The Turks provided the alcohol. No one was going home sober if they could help it.

Tseng moved through the entire thing, from ritual to vigil to burning, in a daze. He noted the gifts piled high for the River Crossing: heaps of gourmet candy, stacks of coins, the special high-caliber bullets that Vincent had used, packs of Veld’s favorite cigarettes, bottles of expensive whisky and red wine. He chanted sutras with the priest, lit incense with a steady hand.

He ate at the vigil, though somehow it all tasted exactly alike. He raised glass after glass of whiskey in Veld’s honor, and red wine in Vincent’s, but no matter how much booze he downed, it never touched him. He traded stories with the Turks, conversed with Cloud and Tifa, with Cid and Barret, every word bouncing off of him like pebbles striking steel.

When it was his turn to speak, he stood, glass in hand, his mind utterly blank. What could he say that would even hint at the reality, that would do either man justice? Neither Veld nor Vincent had been angels; by some standards, perhaps not even particularly good men. If that mattered, then why was Tseng hollow all the way through, why was the world so much uglier, so much colder?

People waited for him to speak, some of them tipsy, some weeping quietly, a few smiling as though at some private joke. Turks sat beside him: Reno, subdued but bright-eyed, and Rude, stoic as always but straight-backed and steady; Elena and Cissnei, glasses trembling slightly in their hands, eyes locked on Tseng. And more, every Turk still living, backing him up. Veld’s legacy, as much as the knowledge in his head and the skill in his hands, and the passion in his heart.

Maybe he’d had too much to drink; he could swear he distinctly felt a warm presence at his back, radiating approval, pride, and affection. Across the room, he thought he caught a glimpse of red eyes in shadow, above a slight, sardonic smile.

Tseng took a breath. “They lived, and for that we give thanks. Speak their names, and they’ll live again.” He raised his glass. “To Vincent Valentine and Veld Dragoon. May their legends never die.”

That was good enough to go on with.

\---

Both Vincent and Veld had named Tseng their executor. He took it as the honor it was meant to be. Veld’s will had been filed decades ago, updated when necessary. He’d left most of his possessions to Vincent, originally. He’d always thought it nigh-impossible that Vincent would predecease him, but Veld was nothing if not thorough, so he’d allowed for it. There were lists of things and the people they were meant for, and he’d left money to pay for his funeral. Whatever remained was to be donated to the WRO and a few small charities he’d favored.

Vincent had surprised everyone by actually having a will. Tseng found it in the gun case, rolled up between two of the guns. Anything useful was to be donated to wherever it would do the most good, and the rest disposed of as the executor saw fit.

Disposition of their ashes fell to him as well, and he never doubted what to do. Vincent already had an urn, given to him some years ago when Veld arranged a wake to mark Vincent’s death in Nibelheim. It had been sitting on the mantel over their fireplace ever since, a beautiful thing with a gunmetal-gray raku finish, painted with white camellias. In the language of flowers, it meant “Waiting.” Now the waiting was done.

Tseng had both men’s ashes placed in the urn, and the urn itself interred at Veld’s family’s gravesite. The Valentines had no crypt in the area; Vincent’s father had left nothing to bury. Tseng hoped that Veld’s wife would not mind sharing space with Vincent as well as Veld; interring them separately simply would not do.

Tseng paid off the last month’s rent on their house and informed the landlord, the most annoying, whiney little man he’d ever met, that they wouldn’t need it any longer. Turks came to empty and clean the house. All that was left to mark the presence of Valentine and Dragoon was a triple bullet-hole near the door. Every one of the Turks touched fingers to it in tribute on their way out.

Vincent’s sabatons and gauntlet, as well as his guns, were preserved in a place of honor within WRO headquarters, locked in a glass case. Tseng kept Veld’s gun in working order, although he never used it. Veld’s prosthetic, removed before cremation, was given to the WRO’s most talented biomedical engineer for study, in hopes that the design could be improved upon. Veld would have liked that.

Their names were spoken often, celebrated with laughter and tears, with drink and with stories that grew more outrageous with each telling.

On clear nights when Tseng could see the stars, he imagined the banners of the Lifestream drifting overhead, and wondered where their souls had gone.

He had no doubt they were together, and gods knew... the Lifestream would never be the same.


End file.
